Gutted
by Alternatively
Summary: If it had all started with an emergency trip to Mungo's... an alternative, Remus-and-Dora story.


**Remus.**

It seemed prudent not to argue. If the healers had decreed 'no apparition for twenty-four hours', then no apparition it was.

But Remus was almost certain this was _not_ the way to get back to Grimmauld Place. He had a suspicion about where Tonks might be taking him, but he couldn't bring himself to ask, because if he was right, then he'd have to argue with her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

So he sat next to her on the muggle tube, bemused by how practiced she seemed at navigating muggle London, and torn between being profoundly grateful and absolutely horrified at what he'd accidentally put her through.

_And that is a classic example of why you cannot, not EVER, even think about- well. Best not to think about it._

He tried to push the idea of her out of his head. It was becoming a habit. Saying to himself 'yes, I know how you feel, but right now, you need to concentrate on _this_', whatever the 'this' might be at the time. For now, considering how nice it was to sit in a smelly compartment full of self-absorbed commuters, was the 'this'. For now.

It felt strangely safe, with the rushing-roaring of the tube, with her by his side, with the beautiful anonymity of being surrounded by people who, if they thought about him at all, probably thought he was an impoverished academic of some sort. Not that he considered himself that way, but she seemed to think muggles would, given his clothing.

He still didn't know quite what to make of the past two days.

Before that, he'd been on a job.

And then it had been full moon, but he couldn't bring himself to join the pack for that. Not when he knew what they might do- what he might do.

But they didn't like that he wouldn't change with them.

He still didn't know how she'd found him. Or why she'd come looking in the first place.

That she'd found him when she did was even more astonishing.

And now his knees were creaking, and he was getting off the tube, and following her, pink hair dancing in front of him as she made her way up the stairs in the mass of people, decisively, like this was a familiar place, like she'd walked up these stairs a million times before (stumbling and catching herself on the hand railing), and it was the flap of her coat, and the stamp of her boots, and the totally unbelievable thing she had done just absolutely silenced him.

_You should ask the question._

_If she's taking you there… you can't go._

_It's too loud here. Ask outside._

But when they passed through the turnstiles and out into the street, there was the gushing water from above and the splash of cars, blaring of horns, huddle of people and umbrella spokes to look out for…

And she grabbed his elbow and half-ran, waving a hand frantically at a bus driver.

"Thanks mate, lifesaver," She said, beeping her card on the touchpad.

This was somehow her world.

They took lots of buses. And a train. And more buses.

Remus started to wonder whether she was taking them anywhere at all.

_Are we being followed?_

She seemed to sense he was getting restless. She was uncanny sometimes.

She gave him a bit of a mischievous look, a quirk of an eyebrow.

"Not far now."

And they were swinging down a wet alleyway full of rubbish bins and mossy brickwork and up a flight of slippery metal steps with the silver showing on the treads, and through a solid brick wall, and down a hallway, and through another solid wall, plaster this time, and up a little flight of spiral stairs to a wooden door with the white paint half sanded off so the grain showed through.

_It's fine. It must just be a safehouse._

He tried to focus on feeling relieved instead of disappointed.

"Alright Remus?"

He nodded. She was eyeing him in that way she had. Mostly she was all noise and distraction, colourful, clumsy, sparky and accidental, but every so often he caught this side of her. The thoughtful, careful, empathetic side that Moody said was a blessing and a curse in an Auror.

The key in the lock, a few well-placed spells, a pause, while she listened to something he couldn't hear… a few more motions, a door knock that seemed highly complicated, and then she turned the dented handle and went in, tripping slightly on the door sill… there was a well-established scuff mark there…

Remus closed his eyes for a moment against the surge of delight.

_I will surely go to hell for this, if such a place exists._

"You coming in or what?"

He stepped inside, dripping rainwater onto the lurid-but-faded orange mat in the doorway, and struggled not to smile.

There was a jumbled pile of boots by the door, a selection of bizarre coats on miscellaneous hooks on the wall, a stupidly huge number of indoor plants in brightly coloured mismatched pots clearly collected from charity shops, an armchair beside an old leather sofa that had not started life that peculiar shade of dark purple, a crochet blanket, weird embroidered cushions, a cascade of well-thumbed quidditch mags and paperback novels, a table crammed with reams of parchment weighed down by mugs and scattered with quills and muggle biros, bookshelves covered in books and plants and more abandoned coffee mugs… There was a little kitchenette, clean and shipshape, almost at odds with the rest of the room except for the teapot, clad in a truly obnoxious knitted cosy, orange and green bobbles, white spout stained with tea.

She shut the door behind him and tried to take his coat.

"I can't be here,"

"Sure you can. And next, you're going to have a shower, and get into something dry, while I sort us some dinner."

"Tonks,"

"Lupin,"

She looked amused.

She was doing that thing where suddenly the mood changed, and he couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps this was flirting.

"I…"

He was silenced by her eyebrow. The one that quirked up, accompanied by an amused 'I dare you' look, the one that told him that no amount of explaining how dangerous he was would convince her to let him go somewhere else. The same eyebrow that told him that no amount of explaining that he didn't want to be an inconvenience, or that he had to notify people that he was safe, or that he had to make a report, or that he just wanted his own bed would work either. She'd decided he wasn't going anywhere, at least until after dinner. That much was very clear.

And any protest would be met by playful banter.

The kind that made him smile despite himself. The provoking kind that brought the person who loved puns and word play and elaborate jokes to the fore… the person he thought had died with Potters all those years ago.

He slightly hated it. It made him punch drunk and uncomfortable.

He had to shut it down, and the only way to do that was not protest. He swallowed his objections.

"Can I help you with dinner?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Not with an apparition ban, no. Be back in about a half hour. Make yourself at home." She considered him for a second. "_Accio,_"

A floppy fabric bundle of midnight blue flannelette pyjama bottoms with a pattern of stars and a faded grey sweatshirt zoomed in from the hallway. A wand flick and they folded themselves (more or less) and dropped onto the armchair by the fireplace.

"You'll have to enlarge them a bit," she said cheerfully, "Towels in the hall cupboard. Back in a mo',"

And she was gone, out the door, before he could object.

_Hell. Hell in a handbasket._

_Still._

_While I'm here…_

He shrugged off his soggy coat and shoes, cast a quick drying spell and left them with her collection of coats and boots. He let is eyes linger on all the careless, comfortable colour in her flat. Shook his head at himself, despairing.

Just _being_ here he felt better.

And he _shouldn't_. He felt guilty about it. He had a short mental argument with himself and gave up.

_Accept it. Accept this little moment. It's going nowhere. Don't do anything, just have a shower. Be grateful that you're alive to help in this fight._

He let out a breath and walked in his damp, holey socks over to the hallway, collecting the pyjamas and a towel (sea green) as he went. He stepped into the bathroom and was hit all at once by how personal it was, to be there, unaccompanied, with the white tile under his feet, the little sink and vanity to the right, and the shower over the bath in front of him, a faded magenta bathmat over the side.

There was her shampoo, and her soap. Her towel (plum) on the towel rail to his left. Her toothbrush (royal blue). Another dark leafy houseplant on a wooden stool, painted pink.

He loved her so much it hurt.

Two days ago, for example.

He pushed it from his mind, undressed, got into the shower, closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the hot water, the smell of her soap, the odd sense of safety in having no idea where he actually was relative to anywhere else, and the fact that he didn't have to put his own ragged, city-tainted clothes back on straight away.

He tried not to think too much about the new scar across his stomach. Newly healed. Straight from right to left, and then jagged down the left-hand side, where they had ripped him open.

Not nice.

He had been quite convinced he was going to die.

There was something about seeing your own intestines that did that to you.

But then _she_ was there, white in the face and shouting _"Pack!"_, which made no sense at all, and then they were on the floor in St Mungo's and two days later he'd woken up to find himself cuffed to a hospital bed with the cover story that he was a Person of Interest in a case. Insides back on the inside, and magically mended.

And now he was here.

And it was blissful, and also something he was trying not to think about.

He let his hands go wrinkly and the room fill up with steam.

**Tonks.**

Tonks thought she was doing pretty well, all things considered. The sight of him, two days ago, in the leaf litter in that forest, and all the blood, and all the _insides…_

She still didn't understand it. Tea break at work, in the office, the sudden overwhelming feeling that something wasn't right. She knew which bit of the country he was in. She wasn't supposed to, but sneakily keeping tabs on people _was_ part of the training. She'd dropped a half cup of tea on the floor. Broken china and tea everywhere.

Said she wasn't well. Walked out. Apparated there.

_On the first attempt._

It was very unnerving.

She'd been very lucky that they'd abandoned him, and very lucky that he hadn't been dead already.

And she'd kept her head. Mostly.

But she swore she was going to practice that damn spell until she had it perfect. Forget suitcases, that spell had saved his life. _Just_.

And she'd been tested, and they'd confirmed that she wasn't infected.

The healers had made a fuss, because she'd been covered in his blood and they were all so paranoid about werewolves.

It was getting quite cold out.

She was in the mood for comfort food. Wasn't sure how his newly healed stomach would feel about spices. Ordered lots of naan and rice and settled for mild curries, lamb and vegetable, and samosa because she was feeling a bit reckless.

She'd cried in the bathroom at Mungo's. Choked on panic. Half drowned herself in the shower, not from fear of infection but fear of losing him before he'd ever really been hers to lose.

But he was _fine_.

And that was the stupid thing about magic. Ordinary injuries, the kind you could get from a car crash or a stroke or literally being _gutted by a knife_, if you got there in time, if you were quick, magic could make it all fine.

When she got home, he was standing in her living room by the fire, bare feet on the floorboards, bony ankles visible beneath the too short cuffs of her pyjamas. He seemed much better than before, but he didn't say anything when she came in, just looked at her, that look of mild concern that was so typically him.

She kicked her boots off and summoned him some big thick socks, and a pair of slippers. They were fluffy and lime green, and he smiled by accident. Like he couldn't work out why he was so pleased to see fluffy lime green slippers.

The sight of him and she badly wanted a shower too. To be dry. And warm. And curled up in her flat with him and the evening stretching out ahead of them. Even if nothing happened, even if all they did was sit there, with all the tension of everything that was unsaid humming between them, while the weather made the world outside cold and wet… if they were dry and by the fire and together…

"You want to plate this up while I take a shower?" She kicked her boots off and didn't wait for an answer, seeing he still had half a mind to protest and leave. "Pop the kettle on, I won't be long,"

She showered and wondered if he'd noticed the dust under the bath. Realised her pyjamas were in her bedroom. Realised there was something thrilling about walking from the bathroom to her bedroom just wrapped in a towel, even though he was in the kitchen and wouldn't know.

Deliberately chose a soft, clinging, purple top, and a pair of bottoms like the ones she'd lent him- but these ones were lavender and covered in a truly sickening static pattern of cartoon fairies. Gift from a friend with a sense of humour- she really should do some washing... It felt sort of aggressively girly, but there wasn't much that could be done about that. She briefly considered charming them to look different, but if he noticed it would be embarrassing. They were just pyjamas.

Big socks and a pair of curly toed slippers with coloured pompoms.

All at once she felt childish.

_What _must he think of her.

But when she walked out, fluffing her hair up (navy blue, to counterbalance the bloody fairies), she saw the moment his breath caught. He hid it well, a little frozen moment, a blink, and gone.

She tried not to feel smug about it and failed. He _did_ find her attractive.

He'd portioned out the food very neatly, economically, not at all the lazy dump-it-all-in-a-bowl approach she usually took.

She had one foot tucked under her, sitting in the armchair with her old crochet blanket draped across her lap and her dinner balanced on the arm before she realised she hadn't said anything since she'd come in, and he hadn't spoken at all.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He sat down on the sofa, holding his bowl of food lightly in one dextrous hand.

"My recent disembowelling?" he asked mildly.

"Yeah."

He gazed at her for a moment.

"Not especially." He smiled. "And definitely not over dinner."

She snorted.

"Fair enough. Just… don't ever do that again."

"It wasn't intentional,"

"Hmph."

"Thank you for dinner,"

"Hmph."

"Given up on language?"

His eyes were dancing. He'd squash that in a minute. Remember he wasn't supposed to flirt with her and put a stop to it.

"Scrabble,"

"Pardon?"

She summoned the game over to the little coffee table in the corner, and then summoned the table. It was no use leaving the thing actually _in_ the living room. She'd tried that and ended up with constantly bruised shins.

"I'm so addicted to language I'm in the mood for spelling," she said, "Also, where's that cup of tea you promised me?"

**Remus.**

He'd been about to panic. The temptation to quip and jest to banish that faraway serious look on her face was overwhelming. But he _absolutely should not_ and that made it all very difficult.

And then she proposed a muggle word game and he _knew_ it was a blatant distraction, knew it was a tactic, stop him from leaving, keep it all light and make it feel like the jokes and the punning were about the game and not about them.

He wanted to relax. He _was_ relaxed.

But there was also that tension in the room, the question, unasked, unanswered.

They ate dinner and it was blissful and he couldn't resist putting made up words on the board; her hammed up outrage was just too funny, and she almost knocked over one of the pot plants while gesturing emphatically to support her claim that 'quidditchy' was not a word.

He felt warm, and happy, and alive.

_This is dangerous._

_You're a fool._

_Put a stop to this right now._

**Tonks.**

They'd made it through dinner, and a raucous game of scrabble, and she'd been giddy with delight that he'd let himself enjoy it, breaking the rules to get a rise out of her and coming up with nonsense words delivered deadpan with a twinkle.

She saw the moment he decided he'd gone too far.

Watched as the happiness faded from his face.

She put her bowl on the coffee table and passed him a tooth mint. Took one herself and let it fizz in against her teeth as she packed the scrabble set away by hand. Couldn't bring herself to use that spell in front of him now. Couldn't work out what to do to make him stay.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently.

She glanced up at him.

"No."

She carried on packing away scrabble pieces. They kept falling on the floor.

"Nymphadora…"

_Uh oh. What now?_

A pause.

"I know a thing or two about marking territory."

She froze. He'd never been this direct about it before.

_Crap. Don't go! Not yet. Not without… just. Please stay._

She dumped more tiles into the box.

"I smell like your soap. I'm wearing your clothes."

She gave up on tidying and looked him square in the face.

"So?"

His expression was unreadable. She thought maybe he was confused. Or in pain. Or. Something. She held his gaze and waited.

"So… I should go." He said quietly, "Before this gets any more complicated."

_The thing is, you ridiculous man, I don't want you to go. And you don't want to go. You really like me. You want to stay. You're just… such a typical Gryffindor. Emotional coward._

_And if I argue you'll be out the door, terrified you might crack and kiss me and somehow bring about the apocalypse._

"Yeah… ok." A wand flick, and she sent the bowls and mugs flying over to the kitchen sink. A clatter. Deal with them later.

He said nothing for a moment.

Of course. He wanted her to argue. Make it easier for him to leave.

"Thank you for dinner,"

"Mm. Before you go…"

"What is it?" Slight worry lines between his eyebrows.

"Just something I wanted to show you…"

She could see he was about to start a mental argument with himself, and put immediate stop to it by tugging his sleeve and then setting off down the hall like it was inevitable that he follow her, which part of her supposed it was.

**Remus.**

_You are a very bad person if you do not leave this place immediately._

He was standing in her bedroom. The ceiling sloped down on either side of the bed in the middle, and there was a window seat. The walls were pale yellow, like sunshine.

The room was a clutter of colour, clothes peeking bright cuffs out of the stuffed chest of drawers, and more leafy pot plants. Twinkly lights around the bedhead. Books on the bedside table, and the night was dark outside but it was warm in here…

"I can't…" he stood in the doorway and his chest hurt.

This was _absolutely_ what he'd been trying to avoid.

"Hear me out," she was saying, and she plonked down on the end of the bed, kicking her slippers off and tucking one foot underneath her in that habitual way.

He closed his eyes and hated himself for feeling glued to the floor.

"You nearly died. I nearly died,"

_What?! When?_

"It's fine, but if I'd hadn't stumbled over my own feet last week, I would've been killed in a raid," she said it seriously, but dismissively, like the fact that she was alive rendered it irrelevant, "So there's the impending death thing. Then there's the fact that we've just had a full moon, so you're good for a bit. And then there's the other part, where it's just bloody stupid to pretend this isn't a thing." She gave him a look. "It's totally a thing."

_It can't be._

He just stood, unable to move, staring at her.

_Leave. _

_Leave now._

He couldn't. It was like paralysis. It wasn't though. It wasn't a spell, or a medical episode or anything he could blame except-

_You're a damn fool. Walk away. Do it now._

She quirked a cynical eyebrow at him.

"This is the part where you tell me you're wildly unsuitable, and I deserve better, and a bunch of crap about how it's all too risky,"

_All true._

She blinked at him and continued, fidgeting with a loose thread from the duvet cover. It was a pattern of water, blues and greens and aquamarines, dipping and weaving in waves.

"So counter argument: everyone dies, all that shit doesn't matter, I'm not proposing we get hitched and start a family or anything, but life's a fucking nightmare and I really don't see why we can't at least, I dunno, have a cuddle or a shag or whatever we feel like and get a decent night's sleep for once."

He closed his eyes again.

_Leave. Get out of here._

She was printed on his brain. The echo of her, with her hair dark blue and serious, that clinging top that emphasised the absolute _womaness_ of her, breasts, waist, hips. Neat. Athletic. Very female.

_Go. _

_Go stand in the cold rain._

He could feel his heartbeat in his ears. He swallowed.

"That would be… inadvisable."

She blinked at him.

Shrugged.

"Obviously, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do," she said. "It's just… it seems like you _do_ want to do something, and if the only reason you're holding back is because you think it'll adversely affect me in some way, then that's so fucking stupid, I'm really not sure what to say."

"If anything happened to you-"

"Like being murdered by Death Eaters? Quite likely. We're in the middle of a secret war, there aren't many of us, and we're being killed off. So _on balance_ likelihood of 'something happening to me' is very high, but due to there being a _war on_ and me having a crazy dangerous job, and _not_ to do with the fact that you have a once-a-month personal crisis."

_Don't. _

_Don't make that argument. I couldn't stand it if I was the cause of your suffering. And I so easily could be. You don't understand._

She was staring at him. Head tipped to the side, like a bird, considering.

"Ok, final argument, and then you can go, if you still want to. There's a hotel not too far away, and you can borrow my muggle card to pay for it- no don't, it's fine, I don't want you to feel trapped."

He managed to nod.

"Final argument?"

She paused.

Stood up.

Walked the few steps over to him.

Looked him straight in the face.

Stepped closer.

Not touching.

Just… far too close.

And if it had been anyone else, he would've automatically stepped back, could've maintained that invisible bubble of personal space without even thinking about it… but it was her, and her eyes were limpid and bright, and staring up at him, waiting, and she was _so close…_

All articulate thought deserted him. He was locked in her gaze, in the rush of heat, in the absolute burning need to touch her, and he forced himself not to, but he couldn't look away, and couldn't walk away, and she was right there, calmly standing there, with the question hovering in the air all around them-

"Oh," she said, worry between her eyebrows, "You're _shaking._ Sorry, I-"

And as she stepped back, and he didn't need to fight so hard not to touch her, he lost focus and reached for her arm without thinking, and suddenly they were back there, in that almost-nothing-almost-something space again, but it was_ his fault_ this time, and his hand was on her arm, and she was right he _was _shaking, and she had one hand gripping the side of his sweatshirt now, and the other hand lightly on the side of his face, and she was moving very slowly, and he knew that was to give him time to freak out and leave, if he wanted to and he _did_ want to, except, no, he really really really didn't want to, and there hit a point where he just gave up completely and kissed her.

He rather thought his brain shorted out momentarily.

**Tonks.**

Something happened to time and sensation. She felt… hot, and delirious, and addicted.

It wasn't as though she didn't know he was different. Well, maybe he wasn't different, how she _felt_ was different.

He was just a man.

She just happened to be in love with him.

And when he kissed her.

It was.

_Catastrophically_ good.

Not because of anything other than that it was _him._

There was a pause, and his face was right there, they were breathing like they'd been running, and his grey eyes had an intensity to them she hadn't seen before, and that just kicked everything up right there, burning heat…

"Dora…"

Her heart skipped a beat.

He'd never called her that before, and he looked so dazed and drunk on having actually kissed her...

She leaned in against him and murmured against his mouth.

"I told you this was a thing,"

He gave a reluctant chuckle, an amused exhale, and relief flooded through her.

He would stay.

She wrapped her arms around him and breathed into the safety of his embrace.

**Remus.**

He let himself get lost in the feeling of holding her close, and waited for his brain to return.

When she said that it was fine, that it could be _just this once_ if that's all he wanted, he knew she was lying. And when he said that it would _only_ be this once, he meant it, more than he could put into words, and he told himself sternly that he _had_ to have the strength to walk away from this, from her, from everything she was offering him with laughter in her eyes.

He had to be able to tear himself away, because this was a life he couldn't have, with her, in the warmth, among the pot plants and the bookshelves and the kisses…

…perhaps he was a novelty, or a fleeting crush to her. He could be that for her, couldn't he? Just… a comfort on a rain-soaked night after a tough week?

Because they had fun together, didn't they? And she didn't need to know what this was to him, that when she was around he felt re-animated, brought back from the dead, that if he was honest with himself (and he tried not to be) he'd fallen in love with her, hard and fast, and long ago.

She didn't have to know that he'd given himself permission _just this once_ to love her, and let her talk him into staying and doing… well, whatever she wanted to do really, and that whatever they did he would hold the memory of it in his mind and pretend that she loved him and the bittersweet happiness would carry him through the next job, the next nightmare, the next battle, until the end of his days.

He could be whatever she wanted him to be tonight.

She sighed and unwound herself and pulled him over to the bed, summoning the scrabble box again, and scattering tiles everywhere.

He blinked at her, bemused, and realised he'd slightly been expecting her to try and seduce him.

"Well, you're about to panic, and do something stupid, so it seemed like a good idea,"

"What gives you that impression?" he asked lightly, sitting next to her on the bed and putting tiles back into the box.

She gave him a very measured look and returned to setting up the little scrabble racks.

"Dora?"

"Remus?" she flashed a smile at him, showy, deliberate. Fluttering eyelashes for a touch of melodrama.

_Dammit, this again. Stop making me feel like a giddy teenager!_

He looked down at the bent scrabble board, the jumble of letters, and tried to ignore the part of his brain which was screaming at him that he'd just kissed her, and if he wasn't such a bore he would still be kissing her.

"_That's_ better!" she said, and she was smirking and leaning over the top of the board and cupping his face in her hand and she was kissing him again.

His head was spinning.

"Uh..? What…?"

"You're adorable when you're turned on and confused about it," she said, on her knees clambering over the scrabble board, scattering the pieces all over again and clumsily straddling his lap. "And we can stop any time you like… but do quit thinking gloomy thoughts and spoiling the mood…"

"I… what?"

"You've decided to stay, so just… stay."

Her hands were running across his chest, down his arms, through his hair, and he felt warm and rumpled and surprisingly… er… _awake._

"Dora…"

She bit her bottom lip, smirking, eyes alight.

"How long have you been calling me that in your head?"

He'd thought he was impervious to embarrassment, after all these years of shame, but something in her expression burnt his cheeks.

"I- don't know," he said truthfully, "Always, I think,"

She gave a gurgle of laughter and kissed him again, both hands in his hair, then on his collar bone, then before he was quite ready she was stripping the sweatshirt off him, and it was all a bit overwhelming and he wasn't quite sure how it could possibly be that he was pressing hot fevered kissed down her neck while she gasped in his ear, and gripped his shoulder, and tore her own shirt off and-

**Dora.**

She'd been a bit worried he'd remember the werewolf hang up, and run away, but Sirius had been right; once Moony decided to do something stupid, he threw himself into it whole-heartedly.

Such a relief.

A night of laughter, clumsy sex, and constantly evicting scrabble tiles from the bed and such a feeling of peace and safety and belonging.

She'd refused to let her fingers linger along that new scar. No point in reminding him.

He was… so gentle. Took longer than it should've for her to realise he'd never done this before.

Of course he hadn't.

He was terrified of hurting people.

She took the lead, awkward and shy, and more goofing around than anything terribly sexy. She let him see exactly how she felt and got a rush of utter pleasure when he let go and let himself enjoy it.

She stretched like a cat, sometime in the early, early morning, curled up against him a tangle of limbs, and fell asleep, the look of quiet happiness on his face an unspoken benediction.

**Remus.**

It was a dream. It had to be.

Probably, this was the crazed imaginings of his dying brain.

He woke up with sunlight pouring into the room, and she was stretching beside him, languorously, and grinning, and rubbing up against him in a way that was so comforting, and so absolutely territorial that it made him laugh.

"I really don't deserve to be the object of your affection," he said, bemused.

"You really don't have any choice in the matter," she said, mocking, affectionate, loving.

"In that case…"

He let himself be lured back in to making her quiver and squeak and breathe his name.

She went out to fetch pain au chocolate while he made a pot of tea and admired her eclectic assortment of mugs. She insisted on breakfast in bed, summoning the scrabble pieces back up onto the covers, demanding a rematch, and looking at him with _such _a look, a look that reminded him of how brilliant it was that she'd taken him to bed as though that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

_I am absolutely going to hell for this,_ he thought, _and right now I'm too deliriously happy to care. _

"No, no, no!" She said, knocking over the scrabble board as she grabbed his chin and press urgent kisses all over his jaw, "You can't apparate until three _at the earliest! _Save the existential crisis for later, we have the _whole day_ nearly, so just eat your pastry and then we can go have a bath and use more than the recommended amount of bubbles!"

It really was the best day.

**Three days later. **

**Dora.**

"Oi Tonks, that snitch of yours is hanging around,"

"What?" She peered through the glass, down to the muggle street below. A brown sleeve was visible in the window of the pub across the road.

Subtle.

A butterfly of delight leapt in her chest.

_Try not to look like a giddy school girl!_

"Think he's got more intel?"

She shrugged and tried to look casual.

"Doubtful. He wasn't that useful really. If he's still there after this briefing, I'll pop down, see what he wants."

She had a _horrible_ time trying to focus on the briefing.

And managed to trip over her feet in the atrium on the way out.

_Just this once._

And she knew he'd meant it.

She suppressed the bubble of hope and stepped out into the street.

**Remus.**

He shouldn't've come.

He didn't know why he'd come.

He'd been restless and distracted and filled with longing, and he had no idea why sitting across the road from her work was remotely sensible.

It wasn't. If anything, it was insane.

He was losing his mind.

He rubbed his tired eyes and tried to concentrate on the crossword in the paper. It wasn't a difficult one, but his mind kept wandering, and he was so distracted he didn't notice until she sat down across from him, knocking over the sugar bowl.

"Wotcher."

"Hello," He put his pen down. She looked… stern.

She ruffled her hair. Orange today. It didn't look right somehow.

Possibly because he kept remembering her as she was without embellishment. Beautiful. Happy. Also, naked.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes again.

"Look, you can't stay here," she said bluntly, "Do your crossword somewhere else."

He wasn't sure quite what to say to that.

But it was the cold, harsh truth he needed; perhaps that was why he was here, to remind himself that it had just been a one time thing, and that was it. Done. Finished. Over.

She rolled her eyes and started drawing patterns in the spilt sugar.

"I'm going to be posted. It's a short job, back on Wednesday. I'll come find you."

"There's really no need…"

She silenced him with a judgmental eyebrow.

"Came here to tell me it meant nothing, will never happen again, and should never have happened at all?"

Also, unanswerable.

"See you Wednesday," she said, with an air of absolute finality. She got up and swung out of the pub, all boots and orange hair.

He told himself he had to be somewhere unreachable on Wednesday. And he was definitely not relieved that she wanted to see him again.

And it was definitely just a random pattern of crosses in the sugar. They meant nothing.

They certainly weren't kisses.

**Wednesday.**

**Remus.**

He'd struggled not to spend every second of every day thinking about Wednesday.

He fluctuated between worrying about her, wondering what she was planning for Wednesday, and wondering where he should go to avoid being sucked into the sphere of her influence.

While also trying not to hope that he did get sucked in.

But there was an Order meeting called last minute on Wednesday, so he had no choice, and she turned up late, and her hair was pink again, and he had a lot of trouble concentrating, but it was ok because she had to leave straight away afterwards, and he was right in the middle of feeling relieved and despairing, and mentally chastising himself as a fool, when she brushed passed him saying:

"Think I left my coat in the living room last time I was here,"

And he found himself swept along into the living room, and her hands were on his face again and she was kissing him with an urgency that would have been alarming if he hadn't been feeling exactly that way himself.

It was heady and desperate, and someone was shouting for her to hurry up, and they broke apart and her face was flushed and her eyes were bright, and she grinned at him.

"Told you it was a thing," she whispered, and dashed from the room, crashing into the door frame on the way out.

Remus sat down on the sofa slowly, and put his head in his hands, and waited for the wild rampaging feeling to settle.

**Dora.**

It lasted for months.

She was careful never to be around near a full moon. That was when he was most depressed and most likely to turn maudlin and self-immolating.

The rest of the time he fluctuated between telling her it was a terribly bad idea, and throwing himself into it, _one last time_ that was never the last time.

Until somehow it was.

**Remus.**

He'd been mad.

Drunk.

High on the feeling of her. Delirious on the giddy delight of nonsense and flirting, and hot, wet, sex that made his head spin.

And then one night, cocooned in his bed, drowsy, and sleepy and sated, she said the words on a hum.

"Love you,"

And it was like being plunged into icy water.

So he stroked her hair, and told her he loved her. Kissed her one last time.

And she must've seen it in his face because she panicked, said it was a turn of phrase, a cliché, that it didn't mean anything, that she took it back, that he was just a convenient shag…

But he had to leave because she did mean it. It wasn't a turn of phrase. And he should never have let it happen.

He left in the night and wandered the cold dark streets.

He should have died that day, in the forest, alone.

Instead he'd had time with her, in the weak sunshine and the laughter and the bubble bath and nonsense, and he knew he didn't have the strength to stay away.

He wandered long into the night.

And the next day he took himself to Hogwarts and had a quiet discussion with Dumbledore. Updated his will. Borrowed a few minor items, and left.

If they killed him this time, she would have to let him go.

And that might save her life.

**Dora.**

It was like the light went out.

She stole his stupid cardigan, and wore it to bed, and cried, and wished she weren't so pathetic.

She saw him sometimes, and fell to begging and pleading and hated herself for it.

It seemed the more he saw that she loved him, the more it stiffened his resolve to stay away.

Ironic, that he was so scared of hurting people, and yet here he was, tearing her apart from the inside…

**Remus.**

He tried.

He'd stayed away as best he could.

She looked awful.

Thin. Beaten.

Ripped apart.

Gutted.

And somehow he was standing in the hospital wing staring down at Bill Weasley's ruined face, and she was pleading again, and everyone was looking at him with a kind of judgmental patience, and he didn't want to hear it because he would ruin her life…

But he could see the tears in her eyes, and the fragility in her that had never been there before.

Later in the hallway he did perhaps the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and her face lit up with relief and happiness, and he saw for the first time what they all meant when they said he was being ridiculous, that life was short and brutal, and deprivation was selfish and self-indulgent.

_Just love her. Maybe that's all you have to do._

**Dora.**

They were going to have to discuss it again.

Round and round and round.

He was a werewolf. It wasn't safe. He was too old. Too poor. Too dangerous.

Blah blah blah.

She was sick of those excuses. Sick of feeling stupid for being so devastated.

They were standing in the hall. And he was looking at her. He looked grey and tired and beaten.

"Dora," he said, and she could've died, it had been so long since he'd said her name, "Can I come home with you tonight?"

_Fuck, yes._

**Remus.**

All the plants in her flat were dead.

Piles of clean washing were abandoned on the sofa.

The contents of a first aid kit was scattered across the table, potion bottles and bandages, and his stomach lurched, but he decided not to ask. Not yet.

_Oh Dora._

They took their coats and shoes off.

She led him into the bathroom. Stripped off his clothing, layer by layer, and abandoned it to the tiles.

He let her stare. Let her examine him with her shadowed eyes. Every scar. Every scrape and scratch and bruise, every mark, every rib bone that sat closer to the surface. Every outward sign of hurt.

And then he did the same for her. A catalogue of pain and suffering.

"You're going to leave me again," she said quietly.

His chest felt tight.

_I can see that for now, you are safer with me. But if there comes a time when you are safer without me… yes. I will leave. Even if it kills me._

"I don't want to," he said, and it came out strangled and hoarse.

A tear ran down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently, and turned on the shower, squeaking taps and drumming water into the tub.

"I know," she said, and she sounded so lost and alone. "But you might. You're kind of a shitty boyfriend like that." She threw him a half smile, like an echo of the flirting from long ago.

Steam was starting to fill the room. He felt frozen in place. Naked. Unbreathing.

She sighed and climbed into the tub. Standing under the shower head, water darkening her hair and cascading off her shoulders.

"You getting in or what?"

She'd broken the tension again. Made it light, unblocked his throat so he could breath again. He climbed in beside her, wincing as the hot water hit all the little cuts and scrapes, the ones she'd inventoried earlier.

She squirted far too much shower gel into her hands and started applying it liberally to his chest, avoiding his eyes, talking to his collarbone instead.

He could feel that she was shaking, and anxious. Worried he would leave again.

He didn't know what to do to make it better.

He was still so relieved that she was alive.

She was safe.

Even if all her plants were dead.

He moved closer, further into the hot rushing water with her, and put his arms around her.

He heard the break in her voice as she started crying.

"Remus, I want you to know that whatever happens, whatever you've done or haven't done, where ever I am, whatever insanity is going on… Remus, you can _always_ come home to me."

"Dora-"

"And the next time you decide to bugger off, take some of this damn soap with you so you don't forget where you belong!"

The pain of it hit him low in the stomach, and suddenly.

She hadn't asked.

Hadn't asked him not to leave. Hadn't asked him to make sure he came back. Hadn't asked for a promise, or an apology.

Hadn't blamed him for leaving.

Not once, in fact. Not in all the intervening months when she'd been begging him to return…

And now… now all she was saying was…

_You can always come home to me._

_You belong._

He didn't mean to cling quite so pathetically, or sob quite so noisily, but it had been a very long dreadful day, and she held him tight and continued lathering him in shower gel, as though the more she used the harder it would be for him to forget.

**Dora.**

She changed the sheets, and banished the mess to the living room, and they crawled into bed.

She felt marginally better, knowing he'd been miserable without her.

He was so thin, and so exhausted, and so sad.

He'd let her see for a moment, the little boy that nobody loved. His parents had been afraid of him, held him at a distance, and the world had rejected and repulsed him, he was treated by those he trusted as an expendable pawn in a brutal war, and the few friends he had known had had their own lives and died…

He belonged nowhere. Had no one.

She curled up around him and stroked his hair and kissed his face and his hands and his mouth, and she told him again and again that she loved him, and this time, _this _time, he was brave enough to let her.


End file.
